Jean-Claude (J.C.) André is a partner in Sidley’s Los Angeles office and is the West Coast head of Sidley’s national Supreme Court and Appellate Practice. J.C. has considerable experience with high-profile matters that address some of the most challenging legal issues, including constitutional issues, issues of statutory and regulatory interpretation, issues of first impression, affirmative government appeals and efforts to obtain and defeat en banc review and certiorari.

Prior to working at Sidley, J.C. served as an Assistant United States Attorney and the Chief of the Criminal Appeals Section at the Office of the United States Attorney for the Central District of California. During his lengthy tenure in the United States Attorney’s Office (USAO), he personally briefed and/or argued more than 75 distinct appeals. During his four years as the USAO’s Criminal Appeals Chief, he supervised more than 350 appeals each year before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. For eight years, he served on the faculty of the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Advocacy Center civil and criminal appellate advocacy and brief writing courses. Before joining the USAO, J.C. was in private practice during which time he handled more than 30 appeals, briefing 14 and arguing 3 matters before the United States Supreme Court.

J.C. was selected by the judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to serve a three-year term, running through 2020, as an Appellate Lawyer Representative to the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference. He has been recognized (along with Sidley Supreme Court and Appellate partners Carter G. Phillips and Jeffrey T. Green) by Reuters’ The Echo Chamber as one of an “elite cadre” of the 66 “most influential” lawyers practicing before the Supreme Court between 2004 and 2012. Adults Unisex Unisex Converse Converse Adults Adults Converse Unisex Lawyers USA’s “Up & Coming Lawyers” edition identified him as one of eight “up and coming” lawyers “across the nation who are on the fast track to making a significant impact on the profession.” J.C. earned his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was editor-in-chief of the Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law. He received an M.A. in Legal and Constitutional History and Theory from the University of Virginia Graduate College of Arts and Sciences. He graduated with two bachelor’s degrees from the University of California at Davis: a B.A. in International Relations and a B.S. in Agricultural and Managerial Economics.

Experience

Representative Matters

LaRue v. DeWolff, Boberg & Associates, Inc., 552 U.S. 248 (2008): Briefed and obtained 9-0 reversal for the petitioner in employee-benefits case regarding whether a 401(k) participant whose account was diminished by the plan administrators’ breach of their fiduciary duties may recover damages from the administrators

Winkelman v. Parma City Sch. Dist., 550 U.S. 516 (2007): Briefed, argued and obtained 7-2 reversal for the petitioners in case regarding whether the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act creates independent, enforceable rights for parents in the special education of their disabled children

Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199 (2007): Briefed, argued and obtained 9-0 reversal for the petitioners in three consolidated prison civil rights cases alleging that Michigan correctional officials discriminated against the petitioners on the bases of their race and physical disabilities and for exercising their First Amendment rights

United States v. Nelson, 471 Fed. Appx. 638 (9th Cir. 2012): Briefed, argued and obtained reversals for the government-appellant in two-defendant case in which the district court had overturned the defendants’ convictions by jury on the basis of constitutionally insufficient evidence